Bicycles, Coffee & Miscellany

Wow, been a week already…

Not surprised – the power supply on my notebook is dead so I have to sit at an actual desk every time I want to write anything. I sit at a desk all day, so that has effectively killed my desire to write anything. I did have a desire to share this, so I chilled a glass in the freezer, poured a beer in it 10 minutes later, and set off to convince myself that sitting at a desk a little more could be ‘fun’.

Bob built a ride around the crazy idea of a ‘net calorie gain’ ride where we basically rode at a conversational pace between different eateries and experienced all that a fall afternoon in Baltimore had to offer. Charlie was awesome enough to invite us all over afterwards and put out a huge spread. it was a great time to say the least.

Out the door at 6:45 –
We started at the Common Ground for Bob’s big surprise of the day – jerseys. Dave #1 had the idea to make these beauties up and present them as gifts. I designed em’ and PJ got in on the act to chip in. We got one for Bob and one for Charlie since he hosted the party and let us kick his homebrew kegs.

Hey Tom, Stole your photo… The group rides towards downtown in the am.

Then we met up and rode back in Frederick Rd. Pretty standard, and the only bad thing was PJ busted a spoke on his Gunnar while heading towards town. He figured that if he skipped breakfast, he could hobble home and grab his Cross-Check to finish the day. Good man. Bob called ahead the day before at Jimmies in Fells Point. They had a table ready for us in less than 10 minutes and service/food was great. The ride was labeled ‘pancakes, Ice cream, beer’, but I decided I’d break with the program and have an omelette instead.

Dave #1 had been checking in on PJ the whole time we were eating to no avail, so after paying our bill we hung around for a few minutes before heading back west through town with the group. PJ must have been riding too fast to answer his phone, because he called us from the restaurant before we could get past harborplace. We hung back and waited a few minutes for him to catch up. From there we rolled off around the harbor and down the gwynn falls trail.

I would swear that there are no strange little neighborhoods on the south side of the city that I’ve set tire in, but Bob took us through 2 or 3 new ones Sunday. I had the magic gps, so was elected as leader for the group. Bad idea. I was having a ‘brain-dead’ morning despite being on my 5th cup of coffee and led us down the wrong road no less than 10 times. Didn’t help that I still hadn’t wiped any of the other tracks off my gps, so I my crossing the lines of other rides unnecessarily confused me. It wasn’t long before our 10 minute time defecit was 20 or 15 was 30, I don’t know. Somehow we ended up at the airport, which we rolled through, and then over towards Arbutus. On the way we passed through the MARC station which had Dave, PJ and I cramming ourselves in an elevator with our bikes to make it across the tracks. Everyone else took the stairs which probably made more sense, and looked slightly less hilarious from the pictures we saw later. At the ice cream stop we FINALLY caught up with the group.

1 ice cream cone later we headed off towards Patapsco for the last leg. Bob had a few diversions for us from the normal route, but I was in the middle of the pack for once so I just went with it even though I had no idea where I was. We stopped to regroup in the middle of the diversion…

… and then the back roads spit us out onto the packed with pedestrians Grist Mill Trail. Our group got split up a little, so when we emerged from the park in Ellicott City Dave #1 and I hung back to make sure all were present and accounted for. Trevor rolled up not a minute behind and we took off up the #9 Trolley Trail for the last big climb to head to Charlies…

…There was one last loop north that was easy to cut out, and I’d been a little off my game all day with following directions so we decided to head straight for ‘home’. Once back at Charlies I called Jen who had graciously agreed to bake us desserts and give Dave & I a ride home after we had a few beers (and an errant tequila shot – thx Dave for being the little devil on my shoulder).

No one wore the mythical thong that was so heavily discussed via email thread in the days before, and no one dove in Charlies pool, but we did have a good time eating grub, drinking beer, hanging out, and even watching some cool 16mm films from Bob’s personal ebay treasure trove collection.

46 recorded miles for the day with a few rolling to the start… times? we won’t talk about all that. GPS? here.

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4 thoughts on “Wow, been a week already…”

Great write up. Thank you and Dave #1 for waiting for me to catch up. I seemed to catch every light on Guilford on my way back to Jimmy’s. I was off too; I couldn’t read a cue sheet to save my life in South Baltimore. Like you said: